Pomegranates have been grown since ancient times and are mentioned in the Bible. Marketing thereof in the economically advanced countries of the world is extremely limited and the fruit is virtually unknown in many of these countries except perhaps for purposes of decoration during holiday seasons.
Popular acceptance of pomegranates as a convenience or snack food has not been realized for a number of reasons. The fruit must be taken apart, i.e. the flesh bearing seeds must be separated from the exterior of the fruit and from the internal partitions in the fruit, both of which are inedible. This is not a particularly simple task and cannot be done without the use of a tool, such as a knife. Furthermore, the juice of the pomegranate is known to produce permanent stains on clothing.
Up to the present no commercially acceptable technique for mechanically separating pomegranate seeds from the remainder of the fruit has been found. Manual separation of the pomengranate seeds for marketing of the seeds in a ready-to-eat state has been found to be economically unfeasible.
A further difficulty with marketing pomegranate seeds in a ready-to-eat state is the extremely short shelf life of the seeds in a fresh state once separated.